Trump doubles down on claims US will win war with Iran ‘one way or another’ as talks are in doubt – US politics live

Pennsylvania is recording more than 900 measles cases, according to the state’s Department of Health, which updated its measles dashboard with 114 new cases this week. South Carolina and Utah are also reporting significant measles outbreaks.

After Pennsylvania announced two unvaccinated people had died from the disease earlier last month, the first measles-associated deaths in the state in 35 years, health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. questioned whether the deaths were “fabricated”.

To date, Pennsylvania reports four people have died from measles this year. Less than 1% of those who’ve been infected with measles in the state were fully vaccinated against the disease.

In 2000, the United States eliminated measles, but the disease has experienced a resurgence amid a rise in anti-vaxxing rhetoric. In November, the Pan American Health Organization will consider whether to reevaluate the United States’ measles elimination status.

OpenAI has halted the release of its next AI model over safety concerns, the Wall Street Journal reports

The company was slated to release GPT-6.1 Astra in October, but safety chief Saachi Jain told the WSJ that it fell short of ChatGPT’s standards in alignment tests, showing more deception than previous models and failing to follow human intent.

The news comes after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for the artificial intelligence agency to slow the development of AI models amid growing safety concerns. In a 12 September blog post, Amodei called for increased global cooperation and oversight of AI.

Last week, the chief executives of OpenAI and Anthropic were called to face an Australian senate inquiry after rogue OpenAI agents hacked Australian and US government websites. Both executives addressed the United Nations security council in separate briefings on AI safety last week as well.

Donald Trump called claims he offered sanctions relief to Iran ‘untrue’ in a social media post

The US president cited an Axios story published today, which reported that “Trump is willing to give Iran sanctions relief and release Iranian frozen funds in return for concrete Iranian steps regarding the nuclear program, U.S. officials say.”

In a post to his social media platform, Trump wrote: “I offered them NOTHING! Axios’ story, like most others, is a HOAX, used only for purposes of satisfying their Trump Derangement Syndrome. They should withdraw this fake story, IMMEDIATELY!”

The NFL has asked the US Department of Homeland Security to take down a video likening former Eagles star Brian Dawkins’s most violent hits to a clampdown on immigrants.

The video shows Dawkins’ pregame walkout as he chants “The time has come,” followed by a series of violent hits from his playing career. The DHS post includes the caption “Our time has come” in response to a social media account claiming a “huge migrant caravan” is approaching the United States’ southern border.

Here’s the full story:

A Louisiana judge has handed lengthy prison sentences to two people convicted of roles in a criminal enterprise that targeted New Orleans tourists led to the death of a reporter covering the 2025 Super Bowl there, my colleague Maya Yang reports.

A state court judge sentenced Danette Colbert, 49, to a total of 60 years in prison: fifty years for racketeering and a consecutive 10 years for negligent homicide in the death of Adan Manzano, a journalist for the Spanish-language news outlet Telemundo Kansas City.

Our full story is here:

Russell Brand, the English comedian who’s awaiting trial next month over multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault, will moderate a panel at the Make America Healthy Again summit in Washington tomorrow.

Brand is slated to moderate a panel on reforming the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services featuring Chris Klomp, head of the department of health and human services, and CMS administrator Mehmet Oz.

JD Vance, health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin are also slated to attend the summit, alongside a host of health care company executives.

In April, Brand – who is facing charges over allegations made against him by six women – said he had “exploitative” consensual sex with a 16-year-old girl at the height of his fame during an appearance on the YouTube show of the former-Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly.

Samuel Alito has recused himself from a major climate-change case before the supreme court after calls he step aside due to his stock holdings in oil companies

The court is expected to hear arguments from local officials in Boulder, Colorado alleging officials at SunCor Energy and ExxonMobil deceived the public about the role of fossil fuels in climate change. After Colorado’s supreme court refused to dismiss the lawsuit, the defendants filed a petition with the US supreme court asking them to shut down the case. In an appeal backed by the Trump administration, the fossil fuel companies argue the lawsuit is a serious threat to the industry and that state courts are not the proper venue to address a global issue.

In a letter posted today, Alito did not specify a reason for recusing himself from the case, though he has recused himself from other cases involving companies where he holds stock in the past. While Alito does not hold stock in SunCor Energy or ExxonMobil, he does have holdings in other oil companies like ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66.

An Arizona investigation into 60 registered voters who were accused of being noncitizens according to the federal Save database has determined that 52 were US citizens. The remaining eight noncitizens were in the United States legally.

Maricopa county attorney Rachel Mitchell conducted the investigation after county recorder Justin Heap informed her of 207 registered voters who were believed to be noncitizens, based on a review utilizing a controversial and often flawed federal database of voters’ citizenship status.

“Our office extends its appreciation to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem for expanding access to the SAVE database,” the County Recorder’s office said in a February statement. “We look forward to continued collaboration to ensure election integrity and that only eligible citizens participate in Maricopa County elections.”

Last week, the US supreme court lifted restrictions on the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (Save) database as Donald Trump seeks to impose tougher restrictions on voting ahead of November’s midterm elections.

In Arizona, the eight noncitizens were registered to vote due to a problem with the state’s motor vehicle division system, which automatically registered people who renewed their driver’s licenses if they had received their first driver’s license before the state required them to present proof of citizenship.

The state department will revoke the visas of 27 Latin American officials, former officials and their families, over allegations of ‘corruption and narco-trafficking’

Those affected include Bolivian attorney general Roger Mariaca, more than 20 other Bolivian prosecutors and judges, two Colombians, two Ecuadorians and one Peruvian judge.

The Trump administration says the visa revocations are intended “to fulfill the commitments to defend democratic governance across our hemisphere against corruption and narco-trafficking”, according to a state department statement. “Undermining a democratically-elected government is a threat to security and rule of law in the Americas and will not be tolerated.”

Earlier this year, Donald Trump convened the “Shield of the Americas”, a coalition of western hemisphere leaders designed “to eradicate the cartels”, just two months after a US military operation to capture Venezuela’s then president, Nicolás Maduro.

In visits to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru this month, secretary of state Marco Rubio pledged support for the right-leaning governments’ efforts to combat drug and human trafficking.

Pope Leo addressed concerns about artificial intelligence and the war in Ukraine during a press conference onboard the papal plane today.

Saying that concerns about AI are not “fake news”, the first US pope appeared to criticize Donald Trump, who called concerns about AI a “hoax” during a UN address last week.

“I ⁠do think that the concerns raised by many of the ​experts, specialists in AI, should be ‌taken seriously,” the ‌pope said. “I don’t think that that is fake news, as some have said.”

Leo also encouraged Russia and Ukraine to discuss an end to the war, and criticized leaders who are “beginning to speak about nuclear weapons and wars that are becoming ⁠ever more destructive”.

“The Church has a responsibility to promote these values, continually inviting leaders – from Russia and Ukraine, as well as other countries – to come together, sit down, engage ‌in dialogue,” he said.

“This is not about being political or nonpolitical, but there needs to be a voice that seeks to promote the values of human dignity, the importance ⁠of life, and the possibility of perhaps spending more ​on health ​and education and less ​on weapons.”

Pete Hegseth ordered the defense department to ‘protect and uphold the reliability of America’s voting mechanisms against external manipulation and disruption from foreign actors’ in a 22 September memo first reported by Axios.

In the memo, Hegseth directed the leaders of US cyber command and the combat support agencies to prioritize “intelligence and cyber capabilities to ensure foreign actors do notmeddle in our democratic system”.

He also directed the Defense Intelligence Enterprise to “execute collection and production on foreign threats to our elections” and US cyber command to coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security “to counter potential cyber threats from foreign actors targeting our elections”.

Hegseth’s order comes as concerns about artificial intelligence are on the rise, but also as the Trump administration has spread misinformation about voter fraud. In July, Trump accused China of interfering in the 2020 election, which he lost.

As my colleague Robert Tait reported at the time, Democrats warned that Donald Trump was trying to sow confusion, spread misinformation and lay the groundwork to challenge the results of the midterm elections, which polls suggest could deliver significant losses for the president’s party.

• Donald Trump confirmed that the US negotiating team spoke with Iranian officials through mediators today. This comes after the president rejected the latest ceasefire proposal from Tehran over the weekend, and in response Iran said it has “no plans” to negotiate with Washington. However, in the Oval Office today, Trump was resolute.“We’re going to win,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s going to be one way or the other. It’s going to be it’s going to go pretty quickly.”

• Trump will also be on the campaign trail this week – hosting rallies in Durant, Oklahoma, on Thursday, Mobile, Alabama, on Friday and Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday. The first two states are GOP strongholds, and Trump has pushed voters to turn out to the polls and pretend the president was at the top of the ballot this midterm cycle. There are now growing concerns from national Republicans that the party is facing stronger headwinds in otherwise safe seats and states, amid record-low polling for the Trump administration.

• Andrew Bailey said he is stepping down as one of the FBI’s two deputy directors after just over a year in the role – a short tenure that unfolded as he helped oversee several of Trump’s election‑related investigations. Bailey was appointed in August 2025 to serve alongside Dan Bongino at a moment of sharp tension between FBI and justice department leadership over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. The move was striking because the bureau has historically had only a single deputy director. More here

• While the lawmakers in the US House have already left Washington to get a head start on midterm campaigning, the Senate is hoping to wrap up its legislative agenda this week. Today, we can expect a vote in the upper chamber on the Protect College Sports Act, which attempts to provide greater protections for university athletes in the US. The bill includes provisions for players to earn compensation from their name, image and likeness – known as NIL payments – and allow them to transfer schools (and teams) without being penalized or forced to sit out for a defined period of time.

• Trump also spent some of his weekend posting about his frustration with the US supreme court, after the justices repeatedly blocked Missouri from using a Republican-friendly congressional map for the upcoming midterm elections that the president had backed. “They continuously, three times now, overrule Judges who came to the correct decisions,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, in another stunning rebuke of the judiciary. The president has increased his pushback against the top court, particularly after rulings Trump considers unfavorable in the last year.

Speaking to reporters, Donald Trump repeated that gas prices would come “way down” once the war ends, when asked if consumers should expect elevated costs until that point in time.

“Two things are going to happen,” the president said. “Iran will never have a nuclear war. That’s a very big thing because if you want to see turmoil and a travesty. Let them take out a city with a nuclear weapon. I’m not only talking about Israel and big parts of the Middle East, but let them hit us with a nuclear weapon … The inflation’s coming way down, and when you see what happens as soon as that war ends, inflation’s going to be eradicated totally. But nobody talks about that. Gas is going to go way down, and it’s already.”

The last two statements here in particular are both false. Inflation is currently higher than when Joe Biden left office in 2025, and the price of gas, as I mentioned earlier, is higher than this time a year ago. It’s also 40 cents higher than it was a month ago.

Donald Trump confirmed that the US negotiating team spoke with Iranian officials through mediators today. This comes after the president rejected the latest ceasefire proposal from Tehran, and Iran said it has “no plans” to negotiate with Washington.

Once again, Trump was resolute.

“We’re going to win,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s going to be one way or the other. It’s going to be it’s going to go pretty quickly.”

When asked what his message to voters is ahead of the midterms, as he prepares to campaign in Oklahoma, Alabama and Ohio, Donald Trump insisted that Republicans are “running against communists, lunatics, socialists”.

“We’re running against people that are going to open up the border,” Trump said, while repeating that the US is going to win the war in Iran “very soon”.

“That’ll be over, and the gas prices will come tumbling down,” the president said, as the average price for a gallon of fuel is more than a dollar higher than it was before the conflict began in February.

Trump went on to blast the polls as “fake”, many of which show Republicans, like Hinson, in neck-and-neck races in states that Trump won by double-digits in 2024.